


Two Roads Diverged

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:08:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8369929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Barry takes a second to think before running back to save his mother. He ends up finding the Waverider instead.(Prompt: Instead of going back in time to deal with his grief, Barry leaves Central and joins the Waverider where he meets a depressed Heatwave. Between becoming friends and time travel shenanigans, things get better.)





	

Barry couldn't be with any of them right now. Not Cisco, not Caitlin, not Wally, not Joe, not even Iris; they all reminded him of what he'd lost. His father. 

Barry runs, as though he could outrun his thoughts.

Even when he'd been in jail, his father'd still always been there. Letters every month like clockwork, phone calls when they could, visits to Iron Heights on his birthday and Christmas. It wasn't a holiday unless he'd had his visit with his father a day prior. 

He was gone.

Just like Barry's Mom was gone. 

Because Barry didn't save her.

Barry runs faster.

He could have saved her. He _should_ have saved her. God, his dad wouldn't have gone to prison. They'd have had years more together, years and years, together and happy. And Barry didn't save her because he was _selfish_. Because he liked his life as it was: being the Flash, being friends with Cisco and Caitlin. Growing up with Joe and Iris. God, Iris. It was their lives, too, that would be irrevocably different. Could he really trust himself to know what was right for all of them? 

But what sort of hero could he call himself - what sort of _person_ was he - if he could watch his own mother get murdered and not stop it? 

He could, though. He could go back. Fix everything. He could -

But could he? Could he give up what he has now? 

Barry runs faster.

He's out of state now, he knows. On the familiar path to - Starling City. No, Star City, they'd changed it. Oliver'd lost his father. He'd seen it happen right before his eyes. Then five years later, he'd lost his mother, too. 

He'd have some insight. He could help Barry make this call. Barry needs someone like that right now, someone not involved, someone -

Holy crap, what was _that_? 

Barry totally just saw a UFO landing. Holy crap. Holy crap. This is as awesome as meeting Kara. Even _more_ awesome, 'cause it's on his Earth, not an alternate dimension. Hey, maybe that _is_ Kara! 

He beelines towards the accident site. Barry's been an expert in the weird since he was eleven. Sure, he finally has the answers he's been looking for - time travel and a speedster with a stupid grudge - but damn if Barry didn't grow up in the UFO subculture, with his story of lightening coming out of nowhere; they were the only ones who'd believed him. 

Of course, they also believed that little green men had taken over the White House and were using it to replace celebrities with lizard-men, but hey, Barry at that had was taking any external validation he could get.

Except when he gets there, it's not a UFO at all.

"Professor Stein?" he says hesitantly. "Jax?"

"Barry!" Stein says enthusiastically. "What brings you here?"

"Well, I was in the area, and I saw the crash..."

"The Flash is named Barry?" the guy next to him says. "That's dumb."

Stein flushes and Barry glances at - 

Holy crap, Heatwave?!

"You just outed me to _Heatwave_?" he exclaims.

"He's a good guy now!" a tall man - Ray Palmer, Barry vaguely remembers him; he'd been dating Felicity and had that kick-ass ATOM suit he could sometimes even use - says.

"Except for that time he was trying to kill us," a woman he recognizes as Sara Lance says.

"He was brainwashed," Jax objects.

"If you're all done," a snotty British guy says. "We really should be on our way."

"To anywhere except 1942, apparently," Ray says. 

"Where are you going?" Barry asks.

"We're going to save the timeline," Ray says with a grin. "We took out the guys who'd been doing it previously, the Time Masters -"

"We going to talk or we going to go?" Heatwave snaps. He looks angry, but then, he always looks angry to Barry.

"And this is your ship?" Barry asks.

"The Waverider," Sara says. "She travels through time. We'll be back before you know it - or at least a few months later," she concludes, glaring daggers at Rip.

"You got a spare seat?" Barry finds himself asking.

He can't have just asked what he thinks he may have just asked.

"You can't be serious," Ray says, frowning. "Central City needs the Flash, doesn't it?"

"I've taken out most of the metas from the Particle Accelerator, plus the ones brought over with Zoom," Barry argues back. He's not serious, but... "And Cisco and Caitlin are on call to help the CCPD's metahuman squad. If I'm only gone a short time, then what's the difference?"

"You can't come," Rip says. "The timeline effects alone -"

"I think he could totally come," Sara interrupts, suddenly smiling in a steely sort of way. "No Time Masters, right? Our choices are our own."

"Mr. Allen is essential to the timeline -"

"Barry _Allen_ ," Heatwave mumbles. "Suddenly all those puns make sense." He doesn't seem happy about it, though. He doesn't seem happy at all, actually, he seems - tired. Beaten down. Depressed, even, like every step forward is a struggle. 

He looks like Barry feels.

"You just said I'm essential to the timeline," Barry says, suddenly convinced that he has to go with them. If he's already in the timeline, he can't succumb to his worst instincts to change it. He can stop people like himself instead. He can - he can get _out_ before he does any damage, and he knows if he stays he will. "And you just said I'm essential to Central City. Well, I need - I need to not be here for a while, okay? I need to be doing something, something _important_ , but I can't be here right now. I need some time to - to absorb, to get over some stuff that happened. Here. To me. I need some time to do that, but if I stay here, I'll be stuck with too many reminders. But I can't stop being a hero, either. So if I go with you, I can - I can come back better."

He's getting some understanding nods.

"Just a few missions with you guys," he says, almost pleading. "Then I can go back and be the hero my city needs. I can't leave them alone for too long, but just a little - a time ship would be perfect. Let me join your hero team -"

"Legends," Heatwave says. "You can come, or not, whatever, but we're not _heroes_. We're Legends."

Barry nods.

"I say he's in," Sara says.

"I concur," Stein says. 

"Definitely," Jax says.

"Welcome to the team!" Ray exclaims.

"Wait! No! Absolutely _not_! I am still the Captain of this vessel, and -"

"You're outvoted, Rip," Sara says with a grin. "Come aboard, Barry."

Barry's expecting to feel that terrible sinking feeling that heralds him having made another bad decision. 

Instead, he feels - free.

Light.

At least for the moment. 

"Thanks, guys," he says, sincerely, and zips on board.

"This is not a democracy!" British guy yells.

"Suck it up, Rip," Sara calls over her shoulder.

\---

Barry ends up strapped in next to Heatwave, whose shoulders just sort of - slump.

Barry decides not to ask. It _is_ Heatwave, after all. Kinda weird that he's here, actually. Maybe Barry should've asked about that.

"Where to first, Captain?" Jax asks. He might be smirking.

The British guy glares. "I hope you all understand how dangerous this is," he huffs. "But our first destination will be a time anomaly on December 8 -"

"Not another person trying to prevent Lennon from being assassinated," Heatwave protests. 

"...no," Rip says. "Though good guess. We'll probably have to stop one of those eventually. But no. 1813, Vienna. Beethoven premieres his Seventh Symphony - except that someone assassinates him in the middle of the performance. It's blamed on a supporter of Napoleon and results in the partition of and utter destruction of France, which in turn drags Europe into a civil war that lasts nearly a hundred years and virtually halts the Enlightenment and the industrial era in its tracks."

"Wow," Barry says. "You guys stop this sort of thing?"

"No," Heatwave says. "Up till now we've mostly been trying and failing to kill some guy."

"Really?"

"He was going to be a terrible dictator and murder most of the world," Ray says quickly.

"Technically, he _became_ a terrible dictator and murdered most of the world," Sara remarks. "We only got to him after that point."

"Yeah," Jax says. "And don't forget the kid we inspired to murder his dad."

"Well it's going to be different this time," the Captain snaps. "We're not being manipulated by the Oculus any longer -"

"You know, Rip, you're right; why don't we get going," Jax interjects quickly. The entire room has started not looking at Heatwave for some reason.

Barry's really going to have to ask about that.

The next few minutes are - less than pleasant. 

"Time travel side effects," Ray tells him. "They're a doozy. Sometimes you throw up. Or go blind. Or start talking backwards."

"I think I'm okay," Barry says, because he's a speedster and his metabolism is better than he has any real right to.

The Captain - Rip Hunter, Barry learns his name is - gets them all ready with the appropriate era-appropriate garb. Apparently, they're rich people going to a charity gala for soldiers, and Beethoven himself is going to show up to conduct the symphony. 

And die, unless they stop his would-be assassin from shooting him out with a high-powered long-distance rifle that shouldn't exist for another hundred and fifty year.

Because they need to save France. And the world, but most imminently France. 

This is _so cool_. Barry's never even _been_ to France before.

"Professor Stein and myself will be going as a patrons of the arts," Rip lectures. "Miss Lance will be accompanying us as my wife -"

"Mistress," Sara interjects. "I am _way_ too hot to be a wife. No one'll buy it."

"- Mr. Palmer will be taking the place of a violinist -"

"I can't wait to see Beethoven," Ray enthuses. "The real life Beethoven!"

"As opposed to what, the dog version?" Jax says, crossing his arms.

"- and Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Rory, and, ah, Mr. Allen will be dressed as stagehands or ushers."

"I call usher," Barry says. He sang in high school: he knows just enough about tech work to be afraid of it. 

Jax shoots him a thumbs-up.

Heatwave just grunts.

"You four will scope out the backstage areas and the orchestra pit, while Professor Stein, Miss Lance and myself will focus on mingling with the crowd. We have no idea where this person will strike from - a box, the orchestra, a rafter, whatever. We know from Gideon that the strike will come during the crescendo in last part, so it is imperative that we find and stop him before then."

"Right," they all chorus.

"And remember: no future technology or powers!"

Barry ends up with Jax, exploring the back rooms. It takes forever without Barry's powers, but he doesn't want to screw up already.

It turns out he's got nothing to worry about. 

The assassin turns out to be not a single person, but a whole gang of Polish nationalists. With handguns and assault rifles and hand grenades.

Who knew the reunification of Poland was such a big deal?

Anyway, since Rip's plan envisaged a lone assassin, it turns into a huge mess immediately. Sara causes three women to faint when she cuts a slit up the side of her dress in order to fight, Ray gets locked into a closet, Heatwave gets into a fistfight with the foreign minister or something, Jax and Stein end up having to form Firestorm in order to carry a whole crate of hand grenades far enough away for them to explode harmlessly, and Barry ends up stopping the final assassin's bullet simply by running across the stage and grabbing it in mid-air just as Beethoven leaps into the air during a forte.

Luckily, everyone in the audience seems to collectively agree that the lightening effect was totally just a side effect of their extreme emotions at how great the music was. 

It doesn't keep Rip from yelling at all of them about nearly screwing up the timeline for nearly twenty minutes.

"Your actions were completely irresponsible! You revealed your abilities to numerous individuals - Mr. Rory very nearly brained _Prince Metternich_ , who is absolutely _crucial_ to the timeline - "

"Didn't know he was a prince," Heatwave grunts.

"Would it have mattered if you did?!"

"Would've enjoyed it more."

"Well, for your information, he doesn’t actually become one for another year or so. And as for you, Miss Lance -"

Heatwave ends up going to the kitchen and just eating some donuts through Rip's speech, which Barry's all in for.

Barry runs into Heatwave - the rest of them call him Mick, familiarly, and Barry's a little weirded out by that - in the kitchen a lot, actually.

At strange hours, too.

"Are you sure you ought to be drinking that at this hour?" Barry says doubtfully when he finds Heatwave with a bottle of scotch when he's going for a midnight refuel. 

"You gonna stop me?" Heatwave says. He doesn't even sound combative. Just tired.

"No," Barry decides. Heatwave looks like he needs the drink. He seems so sad. "Can I ask - if you don't mind - what happened? You look like your best friend died."

Heatwave laughs. It's a bitter sound; Barry winces to hear it. "Got it in one, kid," he says, getting to his feet. "Hole in fucking one."

He leaves Barry feeling awkward and ashamed.

He feels even worse the next day, when he gets the whole story out of Jax and Sara. He always knew Leonard Snart had it in him to be something more than a criminal, but he hadn't meant for it to turn out - like this. 

"I'm sorry," he says to Heatwave on their next trip, a visit to Uganda to keep the soldiers on the Entebbe raid from being infected with a deadly future plague, when he and Heatwave have been assigned to the same post.

"Nothing you did," Heatwave says. "He was like that even before he met you. Better than he ever thought he was."

"Did you really know each other since you were teenagers? I - can't even _imagine_ Captain Cold as a teenager."

"Kid I saved from that shiv was basically the same guy he grew up to be," Heatwave says with a shrug. "More hair, less self-control, even worse with the puns."

"Now that I _really_ can't imagine."

"Well, they weren't all temperature themed back then," Heatwave says. There's the ghost of a smile on his face, the very slightest crinkle to his eyes that speaks of the fact that one day, not long ago, this might have once been a face that knows joy.

"My dad got killed because of me," Barry says abruptly. It's the first time he's said it out loud since it happened. The other Legends just know he has something to work through, not what, and he hasn't really be able to talk about with anyone. Even himself. 

Heatwave looks at him.

"I was - overconfident," Barry says, haltingly. "I'd just - come back from the dead. Or, close to it. Might as well. And I felt like I could do anything. Except then Zoom - he was so angry - he said we were the same, we'd both had a parent die when we were young, but that the problem with me, the reason I wasn't a monster like him, was that I hadn't seen it happen, so he killed him. My dad. In front of me."

He bites his lip, bracing himself for the usual reactions: pity, empathy, sympathy, something inane and stupid and pointless that would just make him have to apologize for bringing it up - 

"I turned on Snart," Heatwave says instead. "I fucked up, and he ditched me, and the Time Masters got me. They did things to my brain until it felt like I'd been turned inside out. Then I hunted him down, and I hurt him, and I threatened his baby sister, and the fucker still gave up his life to save mine."

“Shit,” Barry says, because there’s nothing else you can really say.

“Same back at you,” Heatwave says. “They say it gets better, but it really doesn’t.”

“You just get used to it,” Barry agrees. “Walking around with a giant hole inside of you.”

Heatwave nods.

He doesn’t say anything else, just lets it sit there. No stupid words of comfort. Just – understanding.

Barry feels something that’s been tight in his chest loosen. “Thanks, Heatwave,” he says.

“Call me Mick,” is the reply.

\---

It’s not until their fourth adventure – a visit to China, circa year 2100, to stop a madman from building some sort of time bomb that would unravel the timeline – that Barry starts to notice that Mick isn’t exactly well treated by the others.

Sure, he screws up the missions sometimes, but honestly, which of them doesn’t? But Rip has a tendency to yell at him for a lot longer. Sometimes he’ll scathingly refer to Mick as “the arsonist”, usually in reference to not trusting him with something, like the engineering. Or the piloting. Or the planning.

Or…anything, really.

The others sometimes do it too, joking that they couldn’t possibly let Mick do something – even something as simple as cooking dinner – for fear that it’ll blow up.

Ray and Stein will sometimes interrupt their explanations in order to provide Mick with a dumbed down version, to his apparent disinterest. 

Sometimes what they explain is patently obvious, like basic phrases in Spanish or directions or stuff like that. 

It’s on their sixth adventure, when Stein stops an explanation to tell Mick what a flashover is, that Barry actually bursts out laughing.

Everyone turns and stares at him.

“What?” Barry says. “You were joking.”

They continue to stare.

“You… _were_ …joking, right?” Barry says weakly. “Honestly, Professor Stein, Mick’s an _arsonist_. He knows what a flashover is. Obviously. Right?”

“I wasn’t sure he knew the precise technical term,” Stein blusters, but his ears have gone red at the tips. “Forgive me, Mr. Rory. Since we are discussing your, ah, _element_ , do you have something to add?”

Mick shrugs indifferently. “You’ve been doing pretty good so far,” he says, and takes another swig of beer.

Afterwards, Barry finds Mick in the kitchen again. 

“You sure you don’t have any view on how to set that fire?” Barry says skeptically.

Mick shrugs. “It’d work better if they started it from the other side,” he says distantly. “But you put enough firepower behind it, it’ll light either way. Gun’ll do the job.”

“But don’t you care?” Barry asks. “I thought you were – well. You seemed to enjoy fire. A lot.”

“I did,” Mick says, staring down at his bottle, rolling it from hand to hand. “The Time Masters tried to crush it out of me.”

“…it didn’t work, did it?” Barry says, more than a little horrified by the thought. 

Mick snorts. “It’s coming back, bit by bit,” he says. “I spent a long time with them. Damage like that heals slow.”

“I heal everything fast,” Barry says. He’s not sure why he says that.

Mick snorts. “There’s some things, they don’t heal fast, kid. Not even for you.” 

“I guess not,” Barry says. 

“But it comes back in the end,” Mick says. “Bit by bit.” He drinks some more beer, then puts the bottle aside.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. 

“This latest job,” Barry says. “What do you think of it?”

“Making sure the fire gets started?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t see that we’ve got much other choice.”

“But a lot of important papers get destroyed,” Barry says. “Valuable inventions of all types. All the important patents in early America. The historical importance aside, think of all the people who might get hurt, not having those patents.”

Mick shrugs. “US patent office lit on fire in 1836. We’re to stop the guy that tries to stop it from happening, or to make sure it happens ourselves. Timeline won’t be the same if it ain’t.”

“But wouldn’t it be a _good_ change, making something bad not happen?” Barry asks. “It’s – it’s such an insignificant event, as historical events go. Why not just – let this one change happen? What’s the harm? It’s stopping something bad from happening, not keeping someone from preventing something good.”

Mick taps the table for a second, then abruptly reaches over to his side. He pulls out his gun and puts it on the table. “Snart gave me that,” he says. “You know that?”

“I figured as much.”

“We were doing a job, some years back,” Mick says. “My job was to light things on fire, distraction. Nothing unusual. Except the place went up fast. Too fast.”

“You got caught in it,” Barry says. “I heard about it.”

“Snart got caught in it, too, you hear that?” Mick ask. “Ran back in after me, the idiot. Only reason I made it out at all.” He chuckles darkly. “Broke me out of the ambulance, then ditched me at the illegal clinic I recovered in. Told me to my face we were through, never working together again, not after a stunt like that. Snart never did do emotion. But he saved my life.”

Barry nods.

“Time Masters took that away from me,” Mick says. “They made me forget. I wasn’t a man when I got out of their chair. I was a machine that ran on blood. You know what kept me going, after I got up out of that chair the first time?”

“What?”

“Hatred,” Mick says. “Rage. Snart ditched me, y’see. They left me that much, so I’d have a good reason to go after the Waverider. They didn’t want to leave me anything else. But they let me remember that he’d ditched me. And when I thought about it, well, then I remembered that he’d ditched me before.” Mick’s hand rises up to touch his shoulder. “I remembered where I got my scars. I remembered my _pain_. Not the good stuff, like him saving me. I forgot that stuff for a lot longer. But the pain, that came back fast. And I _hated_ him. I hated him so bad I would have burned myself alive to get to him.”

Barry swallows.

Mick smiles, though it’s more of a grimace. “And that’s how I became a man again.”

Barry’s nod is slower this time, more thoughtful.

“You change the past,” Mick says. “Way I see it, you take away what makes people what they are. Just like the Time Masters did to me.” He reaches out, then, and puts a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “You don’t hate yourself that much, kid. Trust someone who knows.”

Barry goes to sleep feeling strangely warm.

\---

“I can’t believe we’re in India and you won’t let me steal anything,” Mick grumbles. “Not even a souvenir?”

“This is not a criminal enterprise, Mr. Rory,” Rip snaps. “Please focus on protecting Mr. Ambedkar. Our enemies intend to ensure that he gets onto the wrong boat and will therefore drown along with it, but they _are_ armed with lasers and will not hesitate to use them.”

“I’ll grab you something,” Barry says. “Won’t take me more than a minute.”

“ _Mr. Allen_!”

“Didn’t know you had it in you, Scarlet,” Mick says, sounding amused. “How about one of those bells on that tower there? They’re nice and sparkly.”

“Gideon, any timeline impact?”

“None, Mr. Allen.”

“Mr. Allen, you are _not_ going to steal that bell!”

“Sorry,” Barry says. “Already done.”

“I like you more and more,” Sara says with a laugh.

“Oh, the things we could steal with that speed of yours,” Mick says with a theatrical sigh. “And you had to ruin it all by having a conscience.”

Barry laughs.

The good mood lasts through the inevitable screw-up – really quite minor this time, honestly, but, slight shock at being grabbed and kissed in an alley by Sara as a distraction aside, Mr. Ambedkar was still going to go on to write his constitution – and goes all the way through to their next assignment.

They go forward again. The future. Rip needs some parts for his ship, to help track down further anomalies and try to identify their origin, and at any rate they need to stop some time pirates from raiding the port for the same parts.

It’s 2192. 

Eobard Thawne is a few months away from going to go back in time to fight the Flash for the first time. And from then, he’s going to go further back, in an attempt to foil his enemy before he can fight back, and he’s going to kill Barry’s mother.

Thawne hasn’t mastered the Speed Force yet. Hell, he’s just barely a speedster. They’re literally weeks into his development of the powers. 

Barry is faster. Stronger. He could end Eobard Thawne before anything ever happened. He could grow up to be the man in that newspaper article, Iris’ husband, Mr. West-Allen. He could make the change and stop all that pain.

He has to do it. He can’t go back and change his own past, because that’s purely selfish, but this isn’t that. This will make the timeline _right_. The one he never got to live because of Eobard’s changes. He’ll never get a chance like this again.

He goes to sleep, clutching his decision to his chest like a teddy bear.

He wakes up in the glass cell.

“What?” he says.

“Hey,” Mick says. He’s sitting on the ground next to him. “Thought you were gonna sleep all day.”

“Why are we in the cell?”

“You’re in the cell because you were planning on changing the timeline,” Mick says. “I’m in the cell because I didn’t want you to get locked up alone by your friends.”

“You found out what I was going to do,” Barry says dully.

“Showed up on Gideon’s radar,” Mick says, not without sympathy. “Your plan was a good one. Would’ve worked. But it would’ve made things a hell of a lot worse.”

“It’s how the timeline should have gone,” Barry says stubbornly.

“Yeah,” Mick says. “But did you ever ask Gideon what that timeline was like?”

“What?”

“Other than that one article,” Mick says. “You ever ask Gideon what the timeline was like?”

“I…no. I didn’t. Why?”

“Civil war,” Mick says. “Crime rate through the roof. Alien invasions every other year. Not pretty.”

“What, from the fact that my _mother_ didn’t die?” Barry scoffs.

“You don’t get your powers in 2014 in that timeline,” Mick says. “You get ‘em later. Eobard was rushing to get you up to speed, but what he did was leave a superhero behind in Central City, a superhero that could protect it. That could inspire other heroes.”

“There’s Oliver,” Barry argues. “Green Arrow. He was before me.”

“He also murders people,” Mick reminds him. “Oh, sure, he still happens. He inspires the first public band of superheroes – and they’re a grim lot. They’re vigilantes, law-breakers, and they might not kill but they don’t draw the line too hard at torture. But he _wasn’t_ the only superhero in our timeline for people to take a model from. In our timeline, they had you, too, coming only two years after Green Arrow first showed up, and before he got the notoriety that he did.” Mick’s lips twitch. “Also, apparently you had an impact on his life, too. Something about dating a girlfriend of his.”

“Felicity? Oh, I – I mean, we never dated,” Barry says. “We were thinking about it. But, uh, it didn’t work out.”

“Because you got hit by lightning and fell into a coma?”

“…yeah. That.”

“There you go,” Mick says.

“But you don’t – Mick, you don’t understand,” Barry says, biting his lip till it’s bleeding. “You don’t – it’s my _family_ , Mick. He kills my mom. He kills my family.”

“I know.”

“How can I not save them?” Barry shouts. “How? They’re my parents! I owe them that much! I have to save them. I have to try. I have to –”

“I burned my family alive,” Mick says, and Barry goes quiet.

“It was an accident,” Mick continues. “I see that now. Hated myself thirty years for it, but I got to see myself at that age just this last year. I was a kid. Young, dumb, stupid. I’m sick, Scarlet. I know I am. But I didn’t know it then. I went back to that house full-grown, dressed as a fireman, and I didn’t save them, any of them. Not one brother, not even the goddamn dog, and you know why? Because I _couldn’t_. I couldn’t do that to me. Couldn’t do that to Snart.”

“You saved his life,” Barry says, realizing. “In juvie.”

“And I wouldn’t have been in juvie if my family hadn’t burned,” Mick confirms. “You have to keep going forward. Fixing the past isn’t going to fix you. Even if I’d saved them, I’d still be sick. Only difference is, I might never have met my partner.”

“But I miss them,” Barry says, and he knows tears are flowing down his face. “I miss them, Mick. I miss them _so much_.”

Mick lets Barry lean his head against his shoulder. He even wraps an arm around him. “Yeah,” he says, his voice rough. “I miss him, too.”

\----

"The next place we will stop is going to be Folkestone, England," Rip says. "On the 15 of May, 1855 -"

"What happened _then_?" Ray asks, puzzled. “Seems pretty obscure.”

"Hold up," Mick says sitting up straight. "Some time traveling asshole's gonna fuck up the Great Gold Robbery? You fucking kidding me?"

"The what," Sara says, giant grin spreading on her face.

"Hey, you assassins've got your legends, us criminals have ours. That heist was one for the books!"

“We’re going to make sure a _heist_ happens?” Jax says. “Really?”

“That is not why we’re going!”

“Beautiful heist,” Mick tells Barry. “Just beautiful. You’ll see. It’s gorgeous.”

“We’re not going to go watch a heist, Mr. Rory. An important dignitary –”

“You and me, Scarlet,” Mick says, slapping Barry on the shoulder. “It’ll be grand.”

Barry grins and ducks his head.

“We have a _mission_ –”

“You can handle with just the rest of ‘em,” Mick says firmly. “Scarlet and I are going sight-seeing.”

“Mr. Rory!”

“Oh, let them go,” Sara says, grinning like a maniac. “I owe Rory one for the, uh, thing. With the anarchists.”

“What thing with the anarchists?!” Rip exclaims. 

“Emma Goldman’s an attractive woman,” Sara says. “You can’t hold that against me.”

Jax fist-bumps her.

Barry snickers. Ray shoots him a thumbs up.

Rip grumbles.

Afterwards, Barry gets dressed double-quick and zips over to where Ray is having way too much fun having Gideon paste on muttonchops and a mustache. “Hey, Ray,” he says, leaning against the doorframe casually.

Well, he tries. He keeps forgetting how narrow the doors are, and he promptly slips and nearly tumbles inside. His speed gets him back to upright before Ray finishes turning around, though.

“Barry!” Ray says. “How do I look?”

Barry snickers. 

“Not quite modern, is it?” Ray says with a grin. “But seriously, what’s up? I thought you’d be getting ready for you and Mick’s – ah – ”

“That’s kind of what I wanted to ask you about,” Barry says. “ _Is_ it a…well…?”

“He certainly never asked me to go out to watch a _legendary_ heist,” Ray says with a grin. “And he actually seems to like me. Most of the time.”

Barry grins back. 

“How about you?” Ray asks. “Is it awkward, him being a supervillain and all?”

“He’s not much of a supervillain now, is he?” Barry points out. “He’s – well.” He smiles a little. “He’s a good guy.”

“He really is,” Ray says. “Did I tell you about Russia? He and Snart risked their own lives to get me out.”

“Yeah,” Barry says, then hesitates. “Um. Ray. About Snart. Do you know if he and Mick…?”

“I have no idea,” Ray says honestly. “They were close. You should’ve seen them, the way they moved, totally in sync –”

“I did see them,” Barry says dryly. “They were attacking me at the time.”

Ray coughs. “Oh, yeah. Right. Not sure how I can get you the answer to that question.”

“Have you considered just asking the guy?” Jax says, popping his head out of the closet where he’s pulling on his boots. 

Both Ray and Barry turn to stare at Jax.

“Right,” Jax mutters, rolling his eyes. “Honest communication’s the first thing that goes when you sign up to be a superhero. I almost forgot.”

“I guess I could just ask him,” Barry says doubtfully. That seems almost too easy.

And he means to, he really does, but Mick’s so cheerful and excited about seeing this heist take place – practically giddy with it – that Barry doesn’t have the heart to bring it up.

Of course, then they have to stop the train from being derailed with a completely ahistorical sonic grenade because it turns out the anomaly Gideon detected was a head-fake to keep Time Masters from stopping the _real_ target the band of time pirates were going after – a child who would eventually grow up to invent something or another, because Barry had kind of stopped listening – but all in all, Barry’s had worse first dates.

“ _Was_ that a date?” he blurts out as he ties up all the time pirates while Mick revs up the pirate’s timeship to take them all back to the rendezvous point with the Waverider in style. Then he realizes what he’s just said and flushes bright red. “Not that I meant to imply it was a date. Or anything date-like. Unless it _was_ a date. Because I have no problem with dates. In principle, I mean. Or in practice! Um. I mean…”

“You liked it?” Mick says hopefully, flashing Barry a grin before turning back to continue steering the time ship. 

“Well, the fight with the time pirates was pretty great,” Barry says, starting to smile back. “I’m sorry we missed the heist.”

Mick guffaws. “Oh, Scarlet,” he says, shaking his head. “We didn’t miss the heist. I guess I forgot that you don’t know how to watch for slight-of-hand the way I do.”

Barry swallows, hard, his smile fading. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m sorry I missed it.” He hesitates. “I know you probably would’ve preferred that it was Snart, not me…”

“Nah,” Mick says. “Snart would’ve found a reason to back off quick as a wink when he found out it was a date. Emotions always did make him come out in hives.”

“But –” Barry says. “Weren’t you and him..?”

“What, me and Snart?” Mick says. “Nah. People sometimes thinks so, but it wasn’t his style. Snart was – what’s the word – he liked everybody, but he didn’t like nobody, do you know what I mean?”

“I can tell you for sure that I have absolutely no idea what you mean.”

“Snart only actually _liked_ a few people,” Mick says. “Liked, hated, respected – you could count the people that actually got under his shell on one hand. Me, Lisa. You. He liked you an awful lot; thought you were a challenge. When we got onto the Waverider, he started liking Sara, too. But he didn’t do romance.”

“Oh,” Barry says, coming to stand by Mick’s shoulder. “Is it bad that I’m a little relieved?”

“Snart was my partner,” Mick says, his eyes fixed in front of him. “Best partner a guy like me could ever hope for. But he told me flat out from day one that I didn’t have no business falling for someone like him, ‘cause he didn’t ever fall for anyone back. Thing that kept our partnership alive was that I listened to him and I never did. We weren’t ever that to each other. He was just always there, you know? Something to keep me pointed straight.”

“Your anchor,” Barry says. “Iris – Iris West, she’s mine. We grew up together. I thought I was in love with her for a long time, even maybe that we were getting there, but when we started trying it out, it just felt...not us. We love each other, we’ll always love each other, but I’ve been idealizing a relationship between us a bit. I think we both were, maybe.”

“So what you’re saying,” Mick says, “is that you’re single.”

“Uh. Yeah, I guess so.”

“Good to know,” Mick says. “But I’m gonna warn you up front: there’s no way date two is going to be this awesome.”

“We hijacked a _time pirate ship_ ,” Barry says, starting to grin now that Mick had confirmed it really was a date. “No date will _ever_ be this awesome.”

“Don’t forget, we also saw the heist of the century.”

“ _You_ saw the heist of the century! I’m going to need to go back and watch it again!”

“Oh, don’t worry about it – plenty of other ones out there. Wanna help me steal the Mona Lisa?”

Barry laughs. “I think Rip would kill us both.”

“Just a copy,” Mick says. “A sketch. Something. Just to say we did it, you know?”

“Ask me when we’re in the right century and I’ll consider it.”

“Knew you had some criminal in you,” Mick says, satisfied. “How’s it feel, walking on the wild side?”

“Good,” Barry says, and he finds to his surprise that he means it. Not about crime – he’s really not a criminal, he just dabbles harmlessly a bit – but about life. Living doesn’t feel like an endless chore that he’s just trudging through, an endless set of reminders that he failed his parents when they needed him most. The wounds still there, that hole in his heart, but he’s surprised to find himself getting over it, little by little. “It feels good.”

He puts a hand on Mick’s shoulder. 

“Now go faster.”

\-------

“Mick! Barry!” Ray calls. His voice is strange – stressed, nervous. Upset, but also strangely giddy. “You have to come see this.”

“What is it?” Barry asks, zipping out to Ray’s side, knowing that Mick will only be a few steps behind.

“You won’t believe this,” Ray says.

“Won’t believe what, Haircut?” Mick says, walking into the room. Barry slides hand into Mick’s and gets a squeeze in return.

Ray points to the screen.

“Look!” he says. “It’s him!”

Mick’s hand on Barry’s suddenly goes painfully tight.

“It’s who?” Barry asks, squinting at the screen.

“It’s Snart,” Mick says. “He’s come back.”


End file.
